“You like nine to five; I’ll keep him satisfied on the weekend…”
A while back, I was entranced with multi-talented artist SZA’s debut album, CTRL, and as I was bopping and popping to the seriously dope album, the world came to a brief halt when the beat dropped on song number six, The Weekend. What? Is this how she’s doing it… bringing the 90s back, and all? The vibe automatically took me back to my high school years when I was crushing on my football player boyfriend — pulling his arms around me tighter to warm the chill of the autumn weather as we sat in his car, seconds away from sucking each other’s faces in. I mean, I was vibing hard to this marvelous song… until… the words hit me.
Wait, what? “My man is her man… her, that’s her man?” Now, these ludicrous lyrics didn’t stop me from loving this song because the beat and melody put me in a mood — but I had to love it low-key because I vehemently denounce SIDECHICKS!
As a woman who has been cheated on a few times in my life, I am not with this new wave of open infidelity, in which people seem to think that it’s OK to have a main bae –and a few thangs on the side, as well. Is nothing sacred anymore?
Apparently not. Half (50%) of American adults are married these days, which may seem like a decent lot until we look back to 1960 when the marriage rate was at 72%. And on top of that, women & men are waiting until closer to 30 to even get hitched. Cohabitation is on the rise while actually getting married seems to be growing less appealing, according to statistics.
I want to attribute this trend to the evolution of the sidepiece. Back in the day, having a little something on the side was kept on the down low. Singer R. Kelly even wrote a song about it, circa 1995. The sidepiece was kept under wraps as expeditiously as possible. The cheater actually feared the demise of their relationship and did everything possible to keep their dirty little secret. Xscape gave us the scoop on their “Little Secret” back in 1998 – “If you don’t tell, I won’t tell, and that’s how we gotta keep it”. R&B group, TLC, also let us know all about creeping back 1994 – the reasoning was due to lack of attention & being cheating on – oh what a tangled web weaved with all that tit-for-tat. Why not just break up? At least they “kept it protected”. Eh.
The big problem: people choose to hang on to cheating partners out of loyalty but end up cheating too, for consolation. The rule becomes “as long as I don’t see it, we’re good”. So then the cell phone becomes guarded like Fort Knox to keep all your sidepiece activity away from your main bae. There is essentially no trust, but she knows that when you disappear on the weekend – giving some bullcrap reason like you need to catch up on sleep or something – that you’re actually chilling with the sidepiece. And she can’t really do anything about it because she’s not going to break up with you, so she just calls up her sidepiece so she won’t spaz out over you from Friday to Sunday.
Celebrities have probably been on the sidepiece agenda forever, but with the advent of social media, this behavior has become normalized and admired by younger fans because it seems bad ass to have several “bad bitches” on your roster that actually know about each other. And when young millennial men take heed and start to openly play the field, for some reason, these young millennial women no longer break it off with the playboy. They don’t even hound the dude about it anymore – these women just go reciprocate. It’s all about being “savage”. Too many mind games and foolish shenanigans. My idea of being savage is cutting that fool off – completely.
What about knowing your worth & building a family unit that is conducive to raising happy, well-adjusted children? No one has to put up with cheating and no one should just settle for being the sidepiece. It seems convenient to have someone who only comes around the couple of days of week you want them to because you are afraid of committing to a real relationship and he just wants a little excitement in his life because he has grown bored with his kids’ mother/live-in girlfriend. We all know he’s not leaving her and their kids, but where does this leave his girlfriend who desires to only be with him? She’s left feeling inferior & lonely because her wayward boyfriend can’t fully commit and you just want a pseudo-relationship that is super convenient? Why is it that people are so afraid of being completely single/alone these days? Get a hobby. Build an empire. Just leave other folks’ main squeezes alone.
Many of us choose to remain absolutely single until this sidepiece trend ceases because, even though there are people out there who actually value the sanctity of fidelity and commitment, they are hard to find because everyone seems so guarded these days. Even so, we should never give up on finding real love. Love is the center of humanity and should be sought above lustful temptation.
Dust to sidepieces.
Ledisi’s new album, The Truth can be broken down in one word (emphatically): Amazing. Start to finish, back to front, “I Blame You” to “Can’t Help Who You Love” – totally bananas. I’m not going to sit and pretend that I’ve been a die-hard Ledisi fan, nor will I pretend I’ve known much about her music or career prior to today. However, I will say that she definitely gained a fan after my ears were blessed with the crazy beats, insane melodies, and veracious vocals contained within the realms of her album released this wonderful day.
Drama + Controversy 